Good evening and welcome to eBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of 2nd John. Tonight is study number 5, and we are going to be looking at 2nd John 1:2, to begin with, and it says:
For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever.
At this point, we are looking at the last part of that verse regarding the “truth,” who is God. It is a synonym for God Himself, that He shall be with us forever. One of the true believer’s greatest expectations concerning the promises of the Scriptures is that we will dwell with God and He with us forever more. He always will be there to teach us, to help us, comfort us, throughout eternity future. This is what the Bible says. There is no question the Bible says this. The only question is, do we trust what the Bible says? Do we believe it? Do we recognize that God cannot lie, that everything that He has stated in His Word is perfectly true and trustworthy? And, do we lean upon it, and trust in the LORD, with all of our heart concerning it? And not lean upon our own understanding or the understanding of the world?
What does the world understand anyway? What does the world know that is so great? And if they know so much, why is the world such a miserable place? Why is there so much violence and hatred and death? Why cannot the world live a single day in peace? But there is constant warfare and bickering and animosity between man. The world cannot even live a single day in any sort of peace and with any sort of goodness.
So how then can the world, which cannot control its own self, which cannot live in any decent sort of a way, how can the world turn around and say that they know the answers? They have the solutions to life and to all things? Obviously, that is not true. The world does not have the solution to the least things concerning living this life, let alone to life itself. It is out of ignorance that the world says that it has answers concerning our beginnings and evolution and our development over time. They know no such thing. They have no idea. These are nothing but guesses and they are ridiculous guesses. They are absolutely foolishness. And yet, the world makes a big deal of these things.
No; the Bible is not like the world. The world has its opinions, its wisdom and its ideas and those things are nothing like the Bible because the Bible’s teaching, the Bible’s ideas and its declarations are true. They are faithful. They are the actual historical things that did happen, when God spoke and created this world and this universe and brought all life into being. The Bible records facts, not make believe and not the fiction that the world claims to be facts.
Let us look at this phrase, that the Bible says is a fact and it is true, that God shall be with us for ever, and it is stated directly. It is not like we are reading anything into it. That is exactly how it was written, and we find much supporting information.
In Revelation chapter 21, it says in Revelation 21:3-5:
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
I will stop reading there.
I just read, perhaps the most glorious possible language, known to mankind. The things that I just read are nothing short of super wonderful. To think that God Himself will be with His people and dwell with them and He will be their God and when this happens, He will wipe away all tears, not most of man’s tears, but all the tears of sorrow.
And actually, He goes on to say in Revelation 21:4:
…there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying,…
Why do we sorrow? Why do we cry? Why do the tears fall from our eyes? And this will happen to every human being. There is no one that can escape sorrow, no one who can escape crying tears of sadness and grief. And the answer is, ultimately, finally, due to our sin. It is sin that brings death. It is sin that brings grievous things into our lives. It is because of sin there is sickness. It is because of sin, we experience pain and affliction,and sin brings everything evil. Everything that causes our heart to ache is a result of sin.
In the new heaven and the new earth, when God will join with His people and be with them, He will remove the cause of sorrow, the cause of crying, the cause of pain, the cause of death, and all tears will be wiped from the eyes of every one of the elect, forever more, and never again will one tear fall, from even one child of God on the count of pain or sorrow or death, because sin will be gone.
Sin will have been removed from the people of God, Christ having taken all of their transgressions and paid for them and God now having equipped the child of God, first with a new soul while they lived in this life and then at the end of this world, with a new spiritual body to replace this corrupt physical body that is going to death. And we will be a new creature, in both body and soul, given an eternal body and an eternal soul that will never weaken, that will never see corruption of any kind. It will never die. And since there is no sin in that new heaven and new earth, there will be no sorrow, as a result, none of the things that we just take so much for granted, that are a part of our everyday life.
Just think about it. Is it anything to hear that someone is sorrowing? No; we expect people to sorrow here. Is it anything to find out that someone has been crying? We are sorry they are crying, but we expect people to cry in this life. There are so many reasons to cry. And of course, every now and then, we hear that another one we knew (maybe a friend, maybe a relative, maybe an immediate family member that we are very close to) has died, and the tears begin to fall. We weep and we cry our eyes out. We are so sorrowful that this person has left us, has left the world and we will never see them again, and none of these things will affect us, will enter into the Kingdom to come, because they will all be destroyed with this world. They will be finished.
What a glorious future it is for a believer (for a child of God). No matter how we lived in this world and no matter how difficult we had things—we could have been like Lazarus, a dirty beggar full of sores, and lived our life in very trying circumstances all our days. That means nothing.
It means absolutely nothing, once we die or once the new heaven and new earth are created, and we enter into eternity future. We look back, if it were possible, which it is not, because God says that the former things will not be remembered, but if it were possible, we could look back at this existence in this life, and it would be no more than a little dot, a little temporal, momentary dot, in the whole spectrum of existence, because we are going to live forever more. And we go further and further into eternity future, and that means further and further away from sin, from death, from tears and sorrow and the pain that this life brought. What is it? It is nothing, because now we have eternal peace and happiness and joy forever more. What a glorious promise and hope that the child of God has an expectation, because we expect fully and we have great confidence in this expectation, that God will be true and faithful to His Words and bring it to pass.
Look at Revelation 22 (the next chapter), and I will read a few verses here, beginning in Revelation 22:1-6:
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
I will stop reading there.
Notice how God just tells us these spectacular things. These we would almost say, “unbelievable things,” to use an expression of the world, when they are faced with things that are just too good to be true. How is it possible that this world, that is so entrenched, that is everywhere around us and the curse that is so obviously upon it, the curse that is upon man and upon the creation (that everything dies and sees corruption), how is it possible it will be no more? No more curse, and that God will be with us and we will actually see His face, His presence and in this glorious place.
God uses the picture, He illustrates the eternal dwelling of Himself with His people in the sense that there is no night there. You do not even need to light a candle. You do not even need the sun to shine in the sky, to lighten the new earth and the new heaven. Why not? Because the Bible says “the Lord God giveth them light.”
Remember that Jesus is the light of the world. God shining in the brilliance of His purity and holiness, in the brilliance, illuminating His people forever and ever. And we shall reign with Him, that is, since we have been made prophets, priests and kings, we are part of the family of Christ. We are of royal blood, and so God will in some way (I do not know how) will cause us to reign with Himself forever and ever without end.
And of these things (and really this is a true statement of all, that we find in the Bible), the LORD says in Revelation 22:6:
…These sayings are faithful and true:…
Why does God say that here? And why did He say it in the previous chapter, after telling us of a world that He will create, in which there is no more tears or sorrow or death and so on? And why does He finally conclude with an exclamation that these words are true and faithful, He said in Revelation 21:5, and here, more super glorious language, and in Revelation 22:6, He ends by saying:
…These sayings are faithful and true:…
because He knows how beyond-our-wildest-dreams this language is. How tremendous it would be if these things were true and faithful.
And so, He confirms it to us. He knows our low estate. He knows that we have feet of clay and how we live in these fleshly bodies and how quickly we could begin to doubt, and so God confirms it to us. He knows what He is saying to us. He knows how it is nothing like anything that we have ever experienced. It is only, perhaps, something that we have heard in some fairy tale, of living a life that is so full of life without death, that is continuing into eternity future without end. How can that possibly be reality?
Just take it from Him, because He is Eternal God, and He has an eternal perspective. He is from everlasting, to everlasting. He inhabits eternity. The Bible tells us that that is true of God, that is within the whole realm of existence, from everything there has ever been to everything there will ever be, God is. He is the Great I AM and He knows that what He is saying is truth. It is a fact, because He can see His people with Him in the far reaches of eternity future, for as deep and as far as He looks into that never ending future, His elect people are dwelling with Him.
And therefore, He makes matter-of-fact statements, so plain, so simple, as the Scriptures declare these things. And yet it is backed and supported by the guarantee of God Himself and His eternal nature, that these things are faithful and true. And we can hang our lives upon it. We can trust completely in it, and the children of God do. We know that what we read in the Bible, everything we read in the Bible will shortly come to pass.
Let me go to 1st Thessalonians, and we are looking at the last part of the phrase, 2nd John 2, and the last part of that verse that the truth, or God Himself, shall be with us forever, and remember that it says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, where it speaks of the coming of Christ, and it says, and I will begin in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17:
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel (or the chief messenger), and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
There it is again. There is the LORD’S declaration. He might as well put an exclamation point after that, as well as everything we read in the Bible, that this is going to happen. We shall ever be with the LORD. Notice what 1 Thessalonians 4:18 (which is the last verse of the chapter) says:
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Yes, we have trials. Yes, we have tribulation. Yes, we currently have sorrow and we have tears, and yes, there is death of loved ones, and yes, this will continue, perhaps tomorrow and next week and next month and maybe next year. As long as time continues, we have the expectation in this world that life is going to be accompanied with grief. Yet, besides living in this world and besides serving God as He would have us to serve Him in our remaining time during the days of our lives, we have the promise of God. We have the great, eternal security of knowing that this world will give way, that our life may give way, to the next world and the next life, to eternal life.
And we will not be alone. We will not have to find our way all by ourselves, but we shall ever be with the LORD. God will be with us. He will not leave us, nor forsake us, nor depart from us. He will hold our hand. He will intimately spend eternity with us in a personal relationship between Himself and each one of His elect.
This is the glorious future, the great riches of the child of God. This is what we possess in these earthen vessels. We do not have our treasure here, it is true. We might be very poor, and if others look at us, they may pity us and think that we have nothing. All that is true, but we possess something that God has given to us that no man can take from us, and it is a treasure not found on earth.
But, it is a treasure in Heaven and it is full of abundant riches, eternal riches, and these comfort us greatly. These are what dry our tears. These are what turn our sorrow to joy, and these are what turn death to life. And so, we thank God for such a great salvation plan that He has worked out and that He has freely given to each one of His people.